Sapporo 札幌市

The name comes from Ainu. The city gives two competing etymologies⁶⁸:

• Sat-poro-pet (サッ・ポロ・ペッ): "dry, large river" (sat = dry, poro = large, pet = river). This is the more widely cited reading: the Hokkaido Development Bureau calls it the accepted theory⁷, and Hokkaido's official Ainu place-name list, as reported by Kyodo, gives it and takes it to describe the Toyohira River (豊平川), which runs through the city²⁷.
• Sari-poro-pet (サリ・ポロ・ペッ): "a river with a large reedy plain" (sari = reed marsh)⁶.

Many district names inside the city are also Ainu in origin (see Ainu heritage below). The main exception is Shiroishi (白石), which was named after the Miyagi castle town that its first settlers came from²⁸.

• Prehistory: the Sapporo campus of Hokkaido University and its Botanic Garden are registered archaeological sites (K39, K435 and C44). The university has run its own excavation unit since 1980²⁹. Excavations show the ground has been used since the middle Jōmon period, about 5,000 years ago, as fishing grounds, campsites, settlements and burial grounds³⁰.
• Ainu era: before Japanese settlement, the spring-fed lowland north of the Toyohira River fan was crossed by salmon-rich streams such as the Sakushukotoni (サクシュコトニ川), and Ainu kotan (villages) stood along them³¹. A Tsugaru-domain report on Shakushain's War (1669) is often cited as the earliest written mention of "Sapporo"².
• Late Edo period (1866): Ōtomo Kametarō (大友亀太郎), a Hakodate magistrate official, began an irrigation ditch of about 4 km for a shogunate model farm (御手作場) in present-day Higashi Ward. The "Ōtomo-bori" (大友堀) later became the Sōsei River (創成川) and the east-west dividing line of the city grid¹⁸. In the same year the monk Miizumi Jōzan (美泉定山) began developing the hot springs that now bear his name²³.
• Kaitakushi capital (1869–1882): in 1869 the Meiji government created the Kaitakushi, and its official (開拓判官) Shima Yoshitake (島義勇) began building its headquarters (札幌本府). Shima was recalled in February 1870, but his plan shaped the city³²⁶. His successor Iwamura Michitoshi (岩村通俊) used the broad firebreak that is now Odori Park as the base line. Government offices went to the north of it and shops and houses to the south, in square blocks 60 ken (about 109 m) on a side¹⁸.
• Early settlers: in November 1871, retainers of the Katakura family, lords of Shiroishi Castle in the Sendai domain (now Miyagi Prefecture), founded Shiroishi Village²⁸. In 1875 the first tondenhei (屯田兵, farmer-soldiers) arrived at Kotoni. With the 1876 settlement at neighboring Hassamu, the Kotoni farmer-soldier village took in 240 households from 20 prefectures, including Miyagi⁶³³.
• Institutions and industry: the Sapporo Agricultural College, forerunner of Hokkaido University, opened in 1876, with the American educator William S. Clark in charge of teaching. Clark left Sapporo in 1877³⁴. The Kaitakushi Brewery opened on 23 September 1876, on the site of today's Sapporo Factory¹¹. Around 1880, Sapporo Village farmers succeeded in growing Western onions under the guidance of the foreign adviser William Brooks. This led to the "Sapporo-ki" (札幌黄) variety, which was later exported to Russia¹⁸³⁵. The Naebo district east of the Sōsei River grew into an industrial quarter of breweries and factories³⁶.
• Ward to city (1899–1967): Sapporo became a ward in 1899 and a city in 1922. Five rounds of mergers between 1941 and 1967 brought it close to its present size⁷.
• Post-war boom: the Snow Festival began in 1950 with six snow statues built by local students³⁷. The population passed 1 million in 1970⁶. The first subway line opened on 16 December 1971³⁸. In 1972 the city hosted the Winter Olympics, with the large-hill jump at Okurayama on 11 February²¹³⁹, and it became a designated city on 1 April¹.
• Ward reorganization: Atsubetsu and Teine wards were created in 1989 and Kiyota Ward in 1997¹.
• 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake (6 September): Higashi Ward recorded shindo 6-lower. In Sapporo 2 people died; the initial count was 95 homes destroyed and 684 half-destroyed, revised to 101 and 818 by September 2020. Liquefaction badly damaged the landfill housing estate of Satozuka in Kiyota Ward. A total blackout across Hokkaido, the first area-wide blackout in Japan, left up to about 2.95 million households without power⁴⁰⁴¹.
• Recent years: the city's population has been falling since 2021⁴². In October 2023 the city and the JOC dropped the bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics⁴³. The Red Brick office reopened after renovation on 25 July 2025²⁰, and the TV Tower was registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in March 2025⁴⁴. Brown-bear sightings reached a record 363 in FY2025⁴⁵. The Hokkaido Shinkansen extension to Sapporo is now expected around the end of FY2038, about eight years later than planned⁴⁶. Hokkaido University marks its 150th anniversary in 2026³⁴.

Sapporo lies at the southwestern edge of the Ishikari Plain. It measures 42.30 km east to west and 45.40 km north to south, and its elevation ranges from 1.9 m to 1,487.9 m⁶. The city center sits on the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River. Groundwater from the fan resurfaces in the lowland to the north as a network of spring-fed streams (Sakushukotoni, Kotoni and others), which drew both Ainu settlement and early Japanese industry³¹³⁶.

The city splits into two very different halves:

• The urban north and east. Most of the population lives here. Shiroishi and Atsubetsu wards are about 70% densely inhabited district³.
• The mountainous south and west. Minami Ward covers 58.6% of Sapporo's area, but only 3.0% of it is densely inhabited; the rest is mostly forest³. This half includes the Jozankei area, which lies in Shikotsu-Toya National Park (支笏洞爺国立公園; designated 1949, 99,473 ha)²⁴. It also holds Takino Suzuran Hillside National Government Park (国営滝野すずらん丘陵公園), the only national government park in Hokkaido. That park covers about 400 ha and includes Ashiribetsu Falls (アシリベツの滝), one of Japan's "100 Best Waterfalls"⁴⁷. Sapporo soft stone (札幌軟石), a welded tuff from a Shikotsu eruption about 40,000 years ago, is still quarried in Minami Ward, and the old quarry at Ishiyama is now a park (Ishiyama Ryokuchi, 石山緑地)⁴⁸.

Climate. The city describes its climate as Sea of Japan type: cool summers, and heavy snow with a peak depth of about 1 m and about 5 m of snowfall a season⁶. The JMA 1991–2020 normals for the Sapporo station are⁴⁹:

Records are 36.3 °C (23 August 2023), −28.5 °C (1 February 1929), and a snow depth of 169 cm (13 February 1939)⁵⁰.

• Structure: Sapporo's economy is dominated by services. Wholesale and retail alone account for 23.5% of business establishments (2021). Wholesale and retail, medical and welfare, and accommodation and food service together make up nearly half of all establishments and workers⁴². Nominal city GDP was about ¥7.61 trillion in FY2019². Per-capita output was ¥3.86 million, below the national average of ¥4.59 million and the lowest of the designated cities compared⁴².
• Trade balance: in 2015 commerce and services earned a surplus with the rest of Japan, but manufacturing ran a large deficit, leaving an overall deficit of ¥396.9 billion⁴². The city's industrial strategy targets tourism and food, and IT and content companies have clustered here⁴²².
• Agriculture: farming is small-scale and serves nearby consumers. Kita Ward grows vegetables, wheat and rice and has dairy farms. Minami Ward grows orchard fruit (apples, cherries, plums, pears, grapes), strawberries, rice and flowers, and raises pigs. Teine Ward is known for pumpkins, watermelons and melons⁵¹. The heirloom Sapporo-ki onion covers only about 3% of the city's roughly 300 ha of onion fields³⁵.
• Tourism: FY2025 was a record year, with 16.047 million visitors (+5.2%). Foreign overnight guests numbered 2.488 million (+14.1%), led by South Korea (692,711), Taiwan (468,692) and China (409,682)⁵²⁵³. Total tourism spending was a record ¥761.7 billion⁵³.
• Demographics: in the 2020 Census, people aged 65 and over made up 27.8% of the population, up 2.9 points in five years, and the average age was 47.7³. The population has been declining since 2021, and young people leaving Hokkaido remains a concern⁴². By contrast, the number of foreign residents is rising: 13,872 in the 2020 Census and 25,580 on the register by September 2026³⁴.
• Notable local brands: Ishiya (石屋製菓, maker of Shiroi Koibito)⁵⁴, Nippon Seishu (日本清酒, maker of Chitosetsuru sake)⁵⁵, and Sapporo Breweries, whose roots are in the Kaitakushi brewery¹³.

Shrines and traditions. Hokkaido Jingu (北海道神宮) in Maruyama is Hokkaido's leading shrine. Its three "pioneer deities" were enshrined in 1869, and it was renamed from Sapporo Shrine in 1964 when Emperor Meiji was added. Its 18 ha grounds are a noted cherry-blossom spot in May⁶⁸. The Okadama lion dance (丘珠獅子舞), first offered in thanks for onion harvests, was Sapporo's first intangible cultural property¹⁸.

Museums. Useful museums for understanding the city:

• Sapporo Beer Museum: beer history⁵⁶.
• Naebo factory and museum cluster: a Hokkaido Heritage site that includes the Hokkaido Railway Technical Museum and the Chitosetsuru Sake Museum³⁶.
• Hokkaido Museum (北海道博物館): Hokkaido-wide history and Ainu culture⁶⁹.
• Historical Village of Hokkaido (北海道開拓の村): relocated pioneer buildings⁷⁰.
• Sapporo Olympic Museum at Okurayama²¹.
• Sapporo Village Local Museum (札幌村郷土記念館): Ōtomo Kametarō and the onion story¹⁸.

About eight in ten of Hokkaido's municipality names come from Ainu⁷¹. Many Sapporo district names do too. The original Kotoni (コトニ, from kot-ne-i, "hollow place") referred to the spring-fed hollow where Hokkaido University and the Botanic Garden now stand. Settlers later moved the name west to today's Kotoni³¹. A local place-name guide gives further Ainu readings: Toyohira (tuy-pira, "crumbling cliff"), Makomanai (mak-oma-nay, "stream lying at the back"), Teine (teyne-i, "wet place"), Naebo (nay-po, "little stream") and Moere-numa (moyre-to, "still lake"). The same guide notes that "Moiwa" (mo-iwa, "small mountain") originally referred to today's Maruyama⁷².

Places to learn about Ainu culture:

• Sapporo Pirka Kotan (サッポロピㇼカコタン, Sapporo Ainu Culture Promotion Center): 小金湯27, Minami Ward, next to Koganeyu Onsen⁷³.
  • Opened in December 2003⁷⁴ and passed 1 million cumulative visitors in November 2025⁷⁵.
  • About 300 items, many of which visitors may handle, plus a reconstructed kotan with a poro cise (large house) outdoors⁷⁶.
  • Embroidery and woodcarving workshops and costume photos are available. Exhibits are open 9:00–17:00. Closed Mondays, national holidays, the last Tuesday of each month and 29 December–3 January. Free parking for 40 cars⁷⁷.
• Hokkaido Ainu Center (北海道立アイヌ総合センター): 7th floor of the Kaderu 2·7 building, Kita 2-jō Nishi 7-chōme. Exhibition room and library, free, 9:00–17:00, closed Sundays and holidays⁷⁸.
• Minapa (ミナパ): a free Ainu culture space inside the Namboku Line's Sapporo Station, between the north and south ticket gates. Opened 21 March 2019; open 9:00–22:00. It has a 2.5 m Blakiston's fish owl sculpture carved with Ainu patterns and CG table theaters showing 18th-century kotan life, and it shows the time and weather forecast in Ainu⁷⁹.
• Hokkaido Museum (Atsubetsu Ward): opened in April 2015, formed by merging the Historical Museum of Hokkaido and the prefectural Ainu Culture Research Center. "The World of Ainu Culture" is one of its five permanent themes⁶⁹⁸⁰.
• Hokkaido University Botanic Garden: has a Northern Peoples materials room⁸¹.

Population and area figures are from the 2020 Census³.

International^1081092

• Portland, Oregon, USA: sister city, November 1959 (17 November). This was Sapporo's first sister-city tie and the first for any Hokkaido city.
• Munich, Germany: 1972 (28 August).
• Shenyang, China: friendship city, 1980 (18 November).
• Novosibirsk, Russia: 1990 (13 June).
• Daejeon, South Korea: 2010 (22 October).
• Kaohsiung, Taiwan: memorandum on tourism exchange, 18 December 2017, renewed 16 March 2023¹¹⁰.

Domestic (exchange agreements)¹¹⁰

• Hamamatsu, Shizuoka: music-culture city exchange declaration, 14 May 2009.
• Matsumoto, Nagano: tourism and culture exchange agreement, 6 September 2010.
• Kagoshima, Kagoshima: tourism and culture exchange agreement, 16 November 2013.
• Shiroishi Ward also has a friendship tie with Shiroishi City, Miyagi².

• Ōtomo Kametarō (大友亀太郎): shogunate official whose 1866 canal became the Sōsei River and the axis of the city grid¹⁸.
• Miizumi Jōzan (美泉定山): monk from Okayama who founded Jozankei Onsen in 1866²³.
• Shima Yoshitake (島義勇, 1822–1874): Saga samurai and Kaitakushi official (開拓判官) who planned the Sapporo headquarters in 1869–70³².
• William S. Clark: American educator who headed teaching at the Sapporo Agricultural College when it opened in 1876, and left Sapporo in 1877³⁴.
• Miyuki Nakajima (中島みゆき, b. 1952): singer-songwriter born in Sapporo¹¹¹.